Blue Series

Here is a picture of the paintings we hung in our house. I am sorry you can’t actually see the paintings. I’ve lost the cable to my digital camera so I had to take this with the stupid camera on my phone. In any case, this is what it looks like in our home. You can see the actual images here, here, here, here, and here.

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Yeah So…Remember That Goal I had….

where I was going to read all those books?

Well, that goal is slowly becoming less and less of a priority. So far I have found the books that I have read to be pretty lackluster. And other people have said the same about many of the others. It seems that I have already exhausted all of the books on the list that are even worth reading. So that being said, I will probably still pick and choose books from here on occasion but it is not going to be my sole source of reading material.

On a cooler note, I am working towards putting an art exhibit together! I don’t have a date set yet, but just that fact that I am working towards something that I love makes me feel very good. I put my art website back up. If you are interested in checking it out, here is the link. I will let you know when the show will be happening. For those in the area that can make it, I would love to see you!

And that being said I am off to start my day of coffee and painting!

I Wonder How Long of a Title WordPress Will Allow Me to Create? Hmmm, So Far It Looks Like It Can Be as Long as I Want It to Be. Awesome.

Sorry about that. I was curious to see what I could get away with as far as a post title was concerned. Maybe one time, just for shits and giggles, I will publish my entire post as my title. Yeah. Probably not. But maybe I just might. You never know.

I like to keep you people on your toes.

So.

Why have I been so neglectful of this blog? Several reasons, but the biggest and most important reason is that I have been spending quality time with Rocket. Time is moving at a RAPID pace when it comes to my little guy (Ok, not so little. He has moved right out of babyhood and dived head first into toddler) and I fear that before I know it he will be driving away with his panties in a wad (my husband is yelling in his mind, “BOYS DON’T WEAR PANTIES!!”) because I made him stay home and eat dinner with the family instead of going to the movies with his friends.

Yes, I will be that kind of mom. The mom who wants to instill in her kids that family comes first no matter what. The mom who believes in the importance of family dinners, of spending time together playing games and going on trips (no, I am not talking about week long trips to Disneyland, I am talking about the last minute camping trips to a locale a mere 10 miles from your home or even in your own backyard). The mom who goes to all the parent teacher conferences and knows how her child is doing in school. The mom who yells, “I LOVE YOU!!!” out the car window to her embarrassed teenager in the hopes that, even though he is humiliated, deep down he knows and feels the same way.

My parents did an OUTSTANDING job when it came to instilling these values in their kids. My best friends are my sisters and brother and my parents. My parents were very young when they were married and had all of us. Because of this we basically grew up together (to put it in perspective, my mom and dad are 53, my older sister is 34, I am 32, my brother is 30 and my sister is 29), and this resulted in a closeness that I have never witnessed in any other family. We still get together weekly or more to have dinner or to just hang out. (Well most of us. I hate that my youngest sister, Jenn, lives clear across the US. Do you hear that Jennifer Jennifer Crotch Crotch? Move closer!!)

I don’t know if I have said this on my blog before, but I LOVE being a mom. I love it more than I can say. I love it to the point of heartbreak, if that makes any sense. I find myself brought to tears on many occasions from the joy and miraculous wonder that Oliver is. I gives thanks daily for being blessed with such an incredible little boy.

I have been painting. Not alot, but I have finished four paintings in the past few months.

It’s a start that I am quite proud of and hope to continue. We hung a series of twenty paintings that I did a couple years ago, in our livingroom, and I hope that this will keep me inspired to continue painting.

I have also been working on project Brain Work, although it is not going as quickly as I thought it would. I am a little behind on my schedule to read all those books in three years. I just finished “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” by James M. Cain. It wasn’t bad. I am not really sure why it was in the top 100 books of fiction, and I am pretty sure this won’t be the last time I feel this way. I do think the title was very clever as a way of saying that you will get what’s coming to you.

So next up is “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” by James Joyce. Another update to come!

Everyday Life – That’s My Boy!

Rocket’s Masterpiece

I Used to Paint.

Remember that?

I do.

“Defeat” 2002
36″x48″ – oil and charcoal on canvas.

“Guitarist” 2000
24″x24″ – oil on canvas

“Woman in Repose” 2003
18″x24″ – watercolor on paper

I used to draw, too.

“Figure Study” 2002
18″x24″ – graphite on paper

“Marjorie” 1998
16″x20″ – graphite on paper

I am going to make a serious effort to start doing that again. It is good for my psyche.

Things and Stuff and Stuff and Things

I know a lot of you have asked what happened with my job, and I have not replied back to you. Sorry about that. I will. I am just waiting for a few things to settle down with that before I can let loose on what is going on. But let me just give you a little nugget…I am/was pissed!! How is that for a teaser?! Anyways, I will write about it at some point.

But for now, it has been strange being without a job. I have held a job, in some capacity or another, since I was about 11 years old. I almost don’t know what to do with myself. And on the other hand I know exactly what I should do with myself, but have to really push myself to do it. And even then I feel like I come up short. It’s strange. I feel excited for the opportunity to get some things done, and yet, incredibly unmotivated to do them all at the same time. It’s been an awkward transition, that is for sure, and I need to get my shit together.

I also keep thinking about all the people I have been neglecting. LilSass, I am so sorry I haven’t been writing very often. I think of you all the time. Miss Grace, I still owe you a CD from the April CD Exchange and can’t believe I have been such a slacker on that. I love the CD you sent, by the way. Thank you! I still read all of your blogs (Badass, Lola, Moonspun, X, Heather, and on and on.), and I am sorry I haven’t been commenting as much as I used to. I guess I just needed a breather.

My business is coming along slowly but surely. It is very much in the planning stages, at this point. I have been trying to figure out how to write a business plan and how I want to organize my business. It has been incredibly challenging. I worry that I just don’t have the mentality and demeanor it takes to run a business and I get very overwhelmed. I just need to keep reading and learning and maybe it won’t feel like so much after a while. I worry, too, that I won’t follow through with this. I have to admit that I am alot of “talk”, at times, and very little “do.” Which is stupid. Nothing is stopping me from doing any of the things I have talked about doing. I just need to get out of my own damn way!

The one thing I really want to do is to start documenting Ollie’s first year in a more hands on fashion. I need to keep a better record of his “firsts.” Like the fact that he has his first tooth! Bottom center; so cute!! And that he is rolling over in both directions (front to back, back to front), finally! And how he has grown two inches in the past two months (the kid is part weed, I swear!) Oh and on top of that he has figured out how to wave hello and goodbye to us.

There are just so many things I love about our little boy.

I love the way his head is a miniature version of Jeremy’s.

I love the way he sucks on his ENTIRE binkie.

I love that he is CONSTANTLY pulling this face.

I love the way he looks you square in the eye and pulls this face when he is taking a huge dump. (And I love, even more, that it is the exact same face that Jeremy pulls when he is acting like he is taking a huge dump.)

I love that he looks just like his daddy when he has on his sunglasses.

I love that he now prefers to sleep on his stomach and that he sleeps with his left leg pulled up higher than the right, just like I do.

I love that he is starting to understand what it means when I hold up the camera and now starts to ham it up!

I love this.

My favorite thing of all, though, is the way he growls like a little monster when he is cuddling with his stuffed animals. Jeremy and I would always make growling noises when we would tickle him or “wrestle” with him, and I love that now he does that himself. Hilarious!! His little face get so serious and scrunched up, like he’s the scariest little monster on the planet.

I would be terrified of the sheer mass of cuteness heading my way. It’s JUST TOO MUCH!!!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I worked in sales. I don’t know if I ever made mention of that on this blog. I have always been very VERY careful about what I said here about my place of employment, in the off chance that they found this site. No one there knew of its existence, at least not from me, and I wanted to keep it that way. The only thing I have really mentioned is that they were letting me work from home.

That is no longer the case, and therefore, I no longer have a job. If you want more details on what happened you can shoot me a quick email. But I won’t be posting about it here. There is still too much at stake and I can’t afford to fuck up any possible reference that I might have.

Am I scared? You bet your ass I am. Am I excited to be able to stay home with Oliver for a while? YOU BET YOUR ASS I AM!! It has been almost three weeks since I lost my job and I can already see that Rocket is growing and learning in leaps and bounds since I have been able to devote my full attention to him.

We have been reading a ton of books and practicing our letters and learning about rhyming. I know he is only 6 months (ONLY SIX MONTHS!! HA!), but I can already see him trying to soak up everything I am saying. He watches my face, with such intensity, and you can see him trying to figure out how to form the words with his mouth. He has started imitating the sounds we make. It’s hilarious to hear him growl as he wrestles with his bunny. Or squeal with joy when he discovers the tags on his blanket.

He is sitting up completely unassisted and loves it. Sometimes I think he would sleep sitting up if he just wasn’t so damned tired. I love seeing him so interested in and excited about his surroundings. It’s a whole new view of his world!

The weather here has been fantastic. So we have been going on many walks, checking out the local parks, and hanging out with Jer at the golf course.

Jeremy is so excited to teach Ollie how to play golf. He has already purchased the tiniest putter you have ever seen! We talk about how cool it will be to take him to play a quick round before school starts in the morning. Hopefully he likes golf but, if not, that’s ok, too. We aren’t going to be the sort of parents the try to force their kids to like something just because we do. If Rocket wants to be a dancer, instead, that is cool with us, too!

So what am I going to do now that I am unemployed? I am finally going to start my design company. This is something that I have wanted to do my entire life. I have talked about this for as long as I can remember. And now I feel I am finally ready. I feel confidant that I can do this. I am not going to say too much about it at this point, since it is very much in the beginning stages. This is also the reason that I won’t be blogging quite as often as I had in the past. I really want to focus as much attention as I can to this. But let me just say that I am SO SO SO EXCITED!!! As soon as my website is up, I will let you all know.

And I am going to start painting again! I used to paint for hours and hours, and in the last year I haven’t painted once. I need to start using my talents. I miss feeling proud about something that I have created. Of course, Rocket, fits that description better than anything, but this is different. This is a way for me to express how I am feeling when words fail me. It’s who I am. I am an artist and I need to be confident in my abilities.

Heads up! Very exciting things are heading our way!!